Business View Magazine | November 2019

95 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2019 MY SHOWER DOOR & D3 GLASS waiting for glass to come in, you’re losing money.” The company has also brought on a new product line. “We opened up an architectural division,” Daubmann states. “Because we can make glass, and we have the machinery to make large panels of glass, we are also doing office partitions. We did the Hertz corporate building here in Estero – that’s their global headquarters. All of the interior office walls are made of glass that we made out of our D3 plant. We just finished work for a Florida weekly newspaper; they moved into a new building and wanted that open atmosphere. A lot of the Florida buildings are going where they want more natural light coming into offices. So, you’re not seeing as much sheetrock walls; you’re seeing more glass walls. And that’s going to give us a lot more work. Additionally, our architectural division also does glass railing systems and wine closets. Glass railing systems have become very, very popular, as well. If you’re walking through a mall or an airport that’s multi-level, you’ll see glass railings all the way through the atrium. That’s become a popular thing for architects to design, and that puts us in another category to bid on.” As is the case with many manufacturing firms, lately, Daubmann admits that finding skilled craftsmen has been a challenge since day one. “We’re fortunate, though, that I, and both my sons, know the business inside and out and we can train people,” he avers. “So, we’re finding people who have good attitudes and a good work ethic and we’ll train them. And if they do come to us with set of skills that fit a particular project, it’s up to us to get them into the right slot so that they can perform well for themselves and the company. We look for skills that we need. For instance, we have a CNC machine and a water jet that does take computer knowledge in programming and operating. So, we look into other industries that use similar machines, whether it’s the granite and stone industry or the sheet metal industry and, hopefully, we have a company culture where people want to come and work for us when we advertise for help. We try and grow organically by having a culture that gives people the tools to succeed. We’ll manage it; we’ll oversee it; but we